Big data eases Postal Service management

Feb. 28, 2014 - 04:30PM
|

The U.S. Postal Service, an organization whose business still depends on paper, is increasingly making management use of electronic data, according to Scott Davis, the agency’s acting controller vice president.

“Like many companies, we've grown with the technology,” Davis said in an interview this week. Post offices, for example, used to detail monthly sales on paper forms; the information would be keyed into a mainframe computer that would tally it up, then generate “reams and reams” of paper reports that would be mailed back to the offices, Davis said.

Now, he said, big-data technology allows the USPS to do that faster, he said. The technology also speeds up the process of paying almost a half-million career USPS employees.

“We close payroll on a Friday,” he added. “By the next Friday, everybody's paid.”